cmatthias

The original M1 (I assume that's what GP meant by "at launch") uses LPDDR4x DRAM modules, the same as many x86 laptops that have soldered RAM. You can literally look up the part numbers based on the photos of the M1 CPU package. Maybe I'm misunderstanding but I'm not sure why it would be any more expensive than x86 laptops' memory, and it might even be less expensive just due to the volume that Apple is likely buying.

> I don't think modern Apple Photos is built to handle slow spinning rust very well.

Apple's software is garbage so I'm sure you're correct, but modern hard drives can do several hundred MB/s of throughput. How is that not fast enough for a freaking photo application? For Apple not to test/support this use case is inexcusable.

Why would you not want an extra 8GB? The point is that it's dirt cheap to add, and Apple's refusal to do so is an insult to its customers.

This is whataboutism, but yes, the Surface Go 2 base model has 4GB of RAM. It's shameful, but that laptop is also half the price of the cheapest Mac laptop, and doesn't absolve either company of blame for ridiculously high memory and storage prices.

Did you intend to reply to a different comment? The speed of the memory has no bearing on the capacity, obviously, so I'm not sure how this is relevant to what I said.

Yes, and? Apple's wholesale RAM cost is likely even lower than a computer with socketed RAM, due to economies of scale and fewer parts overall (RAM soldered directly vs. RAM on a separate PCB, plus a socket soldered to the main board).

Because the alternative is to add literally a few dollars to the bill of materials for the machine, double the memory, and give everyone a better experience. This also means the machine will last longer and likely not end up in a landfill as soon.

$200 to add 8GB of memory is _insane_, and framing it as "consumer choice" is bad when consumers are being gouged so badly. It's literally at least a 20x markup on the wholesale cost. You can buy 8GB of DDR4 at retail for $20 or less.

8GB of general-purpose RAM, regardless of form factor, is dirt cheap. In fact, not having the sockets might make it cheaper than socketed RAM in volume, since there are fewer parts in total.

Can you define "sweet spot" in this case?

Usually I see that term used when the thing being considered is a pricey upgrade, and you need to strike a compromise between price and performance.

In this case, we're talking about an extra 8GB of memory, which would add perhaps $10 in cost to the bill of materials for the machine (or maybe less in sufficient volume). Given that Apple is also overcharging by at least 3x current standard retail price for SSD upgrades, my guess is that there's some room to bump up the wholesale cost a bit.

Not doing so is, IMHO, insulting to users, and given the non-upgradable nature of these machines, bad for the environment, counter to all of Apple's talk about being environmentally friendly.

Almost certainly. The Thunderbolt spec requires any port labeled "Thunderbolt 4" to support dual 4k/60hz displays.

You'll note that, for example, on the Macbook Air (both M1 and M2 versions), Apple labels the ports "Thunderbolt / USB 4," which is confusing and IMHO downright misleading. Either way, the reason they do that is that those ports don't support dual displays, so they only meet the Thunderbolt 3 spec, which doesn't mandate dual displays.

A better label for the Macbook Air might be just "USB 4," or "USB 4 with Thunderbolt 3 support" (though TB3 is part of the USB 4 spec, so that's technically redundant).

USB/Thunderbolt standards are fun.

I think it's worth taking a step back here to say that IMHO regardless of whether the OP's previous comments justify his expulsion from the issue tracker, having the only other available "DDoS opt-out" mechanism be to email Russ Cox directly is _completely insane_ and unacceptable for an organization of Google's size and funding level. If they're going to ban members from the community (perhaps justifiably so), Google needs to either provide another public place to make one of these requests, or preferably make the DDoS feature opt-in rather than opt-out.

This is true but irrelevant to the parent's question -- in the article, it's made clear that Google's requests are happening over HTTP, which is the most obvious reason why robots.txt should be respected.

After reading this and your response to a sibling comment I wholeheartedly disagree with you on both the specific definition of the word crawler and what the "main purpose" of robots.txt is, but glad we can agree that Google should be doing more to respect rate limits :)